The Tiniest Little Dot Caught My Eye And Turned Out To Be A Scab

Thank you for asking where I’ve been.

I waited too long to write and now so much has happened I don’t know how to get it down. I’ve done mental laps that equal a marathon.

In London, I got an email from my husband. A phony apology, with all the words I was dying to hear five months ago. Back when he was still swept up in his girlfriend and the idea that she’d leave her husband and kids. He’d leave me. They’d live happily ever after. Before she backed out, told him her family was too important, told him to work things out with me. Before he revised history, withdrew his confession in an attempt to protect her. Told me I misunderstood.

So this note started with words that, at one time, would have given me some peace:

I want to apologize if I ever made it seem that you were at fault for what is happening or happened. You weren't. I realize it was me, in everything. I am the one that has the problem and I am the one that fucked things up.

You have done nothing wrong in all this.

He used the words hurtful and wrong, selfish and stupid to describe what he’d done.

It should have ended there.

But it didn’t and then came his inability to filter, to know his audience:

I know my problem will end with me being alone or just destroying people the rest of my life. I know there is a cure. I just don’t have the time or the money right now to go seek professional help. I am sure I will eventually and its then that I will really regret what happened.

Translation: don’t take my money. Please don’t take my money. I don’t have any money. Don’t tell your attorney to go after anything. Not my money. I’m apologizing because I’ve already tried bullying and belittling and ignoring you.

I wish I can make it clear to you that we aren't an item. Her family is way too important

Translation: I tried and failed. You aren’t important to me but her family means something to her.

A few nights later, in Barcelona, I drank a lot of champagne and my gated silence turned to rage. I sent an email to both of them, knowing it was mean, would likely make them both nervous about how public i might go. It was damn good closure. And, in all honesty, it looks like this in my memory right now: blah blah blah blah blah.

In the week or so that followed I met someone I should date and gave pieces of my heart to someone I should not date.

I met the guy I should date at a bar. He is smart. He’s attractive, he’s witty and he’s been an attentive emailer. I could go out to dinner with him and it would be my first experience with “casual dating.” The guy holding slivers of my heart has a girlfriend and there is nothing casual about him and me together in the same room.

I’ve just landed in Korea and for now, I’m far away from everything – big stuff like my not-yet-ex-husband and where to set my heart down next. Smaller stuff like whether leaving my car in the same spot for these 8 days of travel is an invitation for a parking ticket and mild (okay. Not that mild) panic over forgetting to check in with tivo before I left. What if it isn’t taping my shows?

I’m listing the pros and cons of Korea as I’ve seen it through the last looped out 24 hours, gearing up to get some really needed sleep and then try and resolve my utter love/hate for this rigid yet loose, disciplined but funky country.